Carillo captivates audience with first time performance in ‘Go Ask Alice’

Arts & Entertainment, Headline, Opinion — By admin on February 1, 2010 5:12 pm

by Jennie Alcantar, A&E and Photos Editor

By portraying the life of Alice Aberdeen, a 16-year-old teen who faces problems of self-image, drug abuse and popularity, the Winter play brought to the stage something absolutely superb.

You can never truly forget something like the book version of the play. Having read the book, I made sure to see the play.

Carolina Carrillo, junior, did an excellent job of portraying Alice, the title character. As soon as Carrillo entered the stage, her presence engaged the audience. Never would one have guessed this was her first time acting.

The first scene, set in July, shows Carrillo’s character, Alice, in the bedroom looking at herself in the mirror, pinching her stomach and thighs, clearly looking for fat. From the beginning of the show, she experiences trouble in trying to find peace within her own skin.

The following scenes show Alice getting to know Jill Peters, a popular drug user played by Sarah Rabin, freshman, and fellow drug-using friends. Alice in turn finds herself also using drugs.

“I did it all backwards,” Alice states in the play, because she starts with acid and ends with marijuana.

Although the show captivated the audience, the lack of variety of scenes was anything but amusing. More than half of the scenes in the performance were set in the white bedroom of the lead character. I did not appreciate the same walls and furniture for every scene. These things made it hard to focus on the show.

Although ‘Go Ask Alice’ had a somewhat generic setting, the balance of charm and grim really pulled the show together. Anastasiya Tsyukenda, senior playing Alice’s younger sister Alexandria, Harlan Rosen, freshman, playing Alice’s younger brother Tim and John Kirby, junior, playing Bill Thompson, one of Alice’s drug-prone friends, definitely induced a good amount of laughs throughout the play in contrast to the serious role of Alice. The younger roles like Tsykukenda’s and Rosen’s brought a good amount of innocence to such an adult plot.

This innocence cultivates in the final moment upon Alice’s death when Tim shields Alexandria from Alice’s dead body.

All in all, the show provided an enjoyable Friday night with its acting and interesting use of lighting, sound and overall feel.

Share on Facebook

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Tags: Alexandria, Alice, Alice Aberdeen, Anastasiya Tsyukenda, Bill Thomson, Carolina Carillo, Go Ask Alice, Harlan Rosen, Jill Peters, John Kirby, Sarah Rabin, Tim